Four
by carrie-whites
Summary: In the small town of Greenboro, just outside of Shadyside, a killer is targeting four teenage girls randomly and is killing them in the most brutal ways possible.
1. Casey

_Four_

_Chapter One_

No one really knew why Casey was killed.

Thousands of people were around and no one saw how it happened. Not even her best friend Brittani. While questioning, all Brittani could tell the detectives was that Casey had went off to the toilet by herself and only minutes later she was falling to her death in front of hundreds of people.

It was a busy day at Greenboro Mall. The mall was large, filled with stores from Forever 21 to Hot Topic. The food court was huge. Panda Express, Subway, McDonald's, KFC and all the other places you could think of, the mall had it. In the middle of the mall was a large, flashy Hummer. It was surrounded with small kids looking up at the large looming black beast.

In the crowd of shoppers was a pretty girl with auburn hair. Her name was Brittani Cooper. Only being in the mall for half an hour, her hands were already full of bags from all the stores she and her blonde headed friend, Casey Rosenberg had visited together.

Brittani and Casey were best friends.

"Friends till the end." they would laugh in unison when they were younger.

They still often said the quote. Perhaps after an argument or a fall out over the silliest little thing.

"Ugh!" Brittani stressed, sitting down on the edge of the fountain. She wiggled her toes in her brand new Converse shoes. "I should have broke these in before wearing them to the mall."

Casey sat down beside her, putting down her bags, laughing. "Should have got yourself a nice pair of these." she pointed down at her white and red high top sneakers. "One hundred percent comfort."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Brittani rolled her eyes.

Bending down, she untied the laces on her shoes and slipped them off, exposing her bare feet.

"Ew! Brittani! Way to gross people out!" Casey protested, holding up her hands.

"What? If people don't like looking at my feet, then tough. Look away."

Brittani put her newly bought shoes into one of her bags and took out the pair of teal sandals she wore _to_ the mall. She put them on and stood up, wiggling her toes again.

"All better." she smiled, flashing her white teeth.

Casey stood up beside her.

"Where to then?" she asked, her eyes glancing around at the stores.

Brittani looked around also, her eyes caught the food court.

"Aah! Food!" Brittani pointed to the left side of them. "I'm up for a trip to McDonald's."

Putting all her bags in one hand, she linked her arm with Casey's and they headed for the food court.

The girls ordered and collected their trays of fries, burgers and nuggets and sat down at the first table they could find. It was rare that they both ate junk food. They often ate healthily and drank a lot of water, orange juice and healthy smoothies. Coffee was also a rare luxury but it was their choice to stay away from those kind of foods and drinks.

"Okay, I'm stuffed." Casey threw down her napkin and took a drink of her coke.

"That was yum!" Brittani exclaimed, eating the last fry on her tray.

"How about we head to Hot Topic next?" Casey suggested.

Brittani nodded her head, her pony tail bobbing. "Sure."

Standing, the girls pushed their chairs back and picked up their bags, deciding just to leave the trays with their leftovers on the table.

Walking through the mall, Casey and Brittani stopped at the Hummer, looking at the shiny thing. "Wow. I would kill for that beauty." Casey smiled in bewilderment.

"Nah!" Brittani screwed up her face. "I prefer smaller sporty cars."

Casey shrugged her shoulders, "Well . . ." she said.

Before they could walk away from the Hummer's side, Casey stopped in her tracks.

"I need to go to the bathroom."

"You do? Why didn't you go back at the food court?" Brittani gave her friend a slightly annoyed look.

"I didn't feel like it then. I'll find one around here." Casey began to walk away and then turned to Brittani. "Aren't you coming?"

Brittani shook her head. "No, I don't feel like I need to."

"Why don't you just come with me, so I'm not alone?"

"I'm sure I don't need to hold your hand for you to go do your business." Brittani said with a little but too much bitterness in her voice.

"Are you serious?" Casey sounded shocked.

Brittani stood with her arms crossed, not looking at Casey.

This is one thing that was common with Brittani, something that Casey had notice. Her personality would change immediately sometimes.

Casey tutted. "Fine." is all she said. Making her voice sound very bitter, but not hurt. She turned on her heels, her long blonde hair whipping around.

"I'll wait here." Brittani called out as she watched her friend go. Casey ignored her and continued to walk.

It had been ten minutes since Casey had left for the bathroom. Brittani paced back and forth near the Hummer, once she had enough, she walked over to the window of a gadget store, sat down her bags and leaned against the window. Her back was aching from standing around and there wasn't anywhere to sit.

"Where are you, Casey?" Brittani said to herself, pulling her BlackBerry from her denim shorts pocket.

She searched through her contacts list and found Casey. She hit 'call' and put the cell phone to her ear.

That's when the first bag dropped from above.

Then the second.

Then the third.

Fourth . . .

Fifth . . .

The contents spilling out of the bags. Brittani knew right away that they were Casey's bags by looking at the bought items.

"What the . . ." she pocketed her BlackBerry and stepped away from the window of the store and looked up. Gasps came from everyone around as a sixth bag fell. Everyone was looking up now, murmuring.

And then she saw her.

The girl being launched over the railing, four floors up.

Her blonde hair fluttering. Her arms and legs flailing.

A terrified scream escaped her mouth on the way down.

Brittani screamed out.

Shoppers began to run, dropping their things. The people around the Hummer were jumping out of the way like crazy. That's when Brittani knew where the girl was going to land.

Her body hit the hummer with tremendous force, silencing her high pitched scream. The crunch of metal and breaking glass was deafening. Brittani hit the marble floor, a pain shooting up her tail bone. The girl's body bounced on the roof of the large car.

People all around her were screaming and running. Security guards pushed through the crowds of panicked people. A woman tripped over Brittani's legs but quickly got herself back on her feet and continued to run in a panic.

Brittani was kept at the mall after she identified the girl who had fallen on the car as her best friend Casey. She cried and cried and when she thought she had collected herself, Casey's mother walked into the security office and she burst into tears again as they held each other in a tight embrace.

A detective asked both of them if Casey had any enemies who would want her dead. They were sure that she didn't and it must have been a random act of violence. The detectives decided to stay on that, but they were still suspicious. A normal teenage girl isn't just thrown from a non-vacant part of the mall to her grisly death. It just doesn't happen. And it doesn't make any sense in why she was on the fourth floor of the mall which was under minor construction which had the full floor closed. Brittani just told them why Casey had left her. To go the bathroom. And there was definitely no bathroom on the fourth floor.

When the detectives let them both out of the office to go home, Brittani walked into the arms of her sympathetic parents and she wept again.

And all she could think about is that before her best friend had died, she never got to say those four words.

"Friends till the end."


	2. Beth

_Chapter Two_

The whole town of Greenboro learned of Casey's death the same day. The mall was surrounded with police and large news vans. When it got dark, the sheriff held a press conference stating that they're searching for the killer but there were no leads to any suspects yet.

Seventeen year old Beth Armstrong learned of the death just as she was finishing her job at the local book store. Two girls whom she had seen around at school had come in and she had overheard them talking about it. Beth hadn't known Casey very well even though she was in some of her classes at Greenboro High.

She felt saddened by the death and also a little scared at the fact the killer was still out there, lurking in the shadows of Greenboro.

Upon waiting for her cab outside of the book store on the beautiful, warm summer's night, she took out her iPhone and called her mother.

"Hey, mom, that's my shift over, I'm just waiting for a cab . . . Yeah, I heard . . . It's the whole reason I'm taking a cab. Not walking anywhere at this time of night alone . . . Okay, bye." Beth put the phone away in her bag as the cab pulled up the pavement.

Beth was happy to get home. As soon as she did she raced up stairs and dressed herself in her comfortable blue pyjamas. Standing in front of the full length mirror, she tied up her white blonde hair in a tight pony tail and then went down stairs.

Her mom was in the kitchen, making them dinner.

"How was work?" her mom asked.

"It was okay. Mrs. Prescott keeps it far too warm in the store though. It gets especially bad on hot days like today." Beth sat down at the breakfast bar.

Beth's mom started to spoon some tuna pasta onto their plates and then joined her daughter at the table.

"I just can't get my mind off of what happened to that poor girl today. In front of hundreds of people. And the thing that really strikes me is that no one even saw how it happened." Mrs. Armstrong began to dig into her food.

"Was it a suicide?" Beth asked before stuffing her face with delicious pasta.

Mrs. Armstrong shook her head. "No. Witnesses said that it looked like she was thrown over the railing."

"Oh. What a nasty way to go." Beth said and continued to eat her dinner.

The week went by fairly quickly and there were still no suspects of Casey's killer. Beth sat on her bed with her laptop in front of her, talking to her friends on Facebook. 'Hold It Against Me' by Britney Spears was blaring form iPod docking station on her dresser.

"Another boring Saturday night for me . . . actually looking forward to school starting in a couple of weeks ! :P"

Beth typed away on her laptop. Soon she was getting comments on her status. Everyone agreed. They all wanted to go back to school too. Summer in Greenboro was boring.

The phone rang.

Sighing, she reached over on the bed and picked up the receiver on her bedside table.

"Hello?" Beth said.

On the other end was the sound of heavy breathing. It made goosebumps raise on her bare arms.

". . . Hello?" Beth said again, with an agitated tone in her sweet voice.

". . ._ Die_!" A voice then rasped, startling Beth. Then whoever it was hung up.

Beth pulled the phone away from ear and looked at it in disgust. She placed it on the charging dock with another sigh.

Just then, a thousand notifications were popping up on her Facebook, slowing down her laptop and almost crashing it.

When the notifications stopped, she clicked on her status which they had been posted on.

Her mouth dropped when she saw what they said, by someone called "Greenboro Killer".

"Die!" all twenty of them said.

A few people started to comment.

Tamara Norton said, "That's fucking sick!"

Rianna Buckley said, "Creep!"

Brandon DeWitt said, "Sick asshole! Who posts something like that and calls themselves 'Greenboro Killer'?"

Then 'Greenboro Killer' posted a comment. " 'Hold It Against Me', I love that song!"

Beth gasped and shut the laptop down right away and pushed it away from her on the bed. She was alone in the house tonight. Her parents were at a fancy restaurant in town with her mother's work friends.

She hugged her bare legs. Her blonde hair swept over her shoulders. Tonight she wore a white tank top, grey sports shorts and white tube socks. Even though it was warm and the windows in her room were open, she shivered.

Who was the 'Greenboro Killer' guy? Was it just some practical joke? But how did he know what music she was listening to.

'Hold It Against Me' ended and 'Something To Die For' by The Sounds started.

Just then, she heard some sort of clatter from down stairs. She was too afraid to move. Maybe it was her parents and they had come without her noticing.

Jumping from her bed, she opened her bedroom door and stood against the jamb. "Mom? Dad?" she called down the stairs. Large thundering footsteps were now coming up the stairs. She began to shake and then he appeared at the end of the hall. He was tall, wearing a long black coat, black boots, black jeans, black gloves and a mask that gave her nightmares when she was a kid. The Ghostface mask from the movie, '_Scream_'.

"Who -" Beth's voice quavered. Then she saw the sharp knife, clutched in one of the gloved hands. It was also the knife that the killer used in '_Scream'_.

Beth screamed and ran backwards into her room. She slammed the door shut and locked it. 'Something To Die For' continued.

Outside, the guy dressed in black slammed himself against the door. He took his knife and began to stab through it. Beth screamed some more and scrambled over her bed, knocking off the laptop. It fell on the floor with a crack. With shaking hands, she picked up the phone from the bedside table. Putting it to her ear, her face fell in horror. The line was dead. He must have done something to the phone cables.

She let the phone drop from her hand and she began to cry. Suddenly feeling helpless.

The window!

Pressing herself up against the window sill, she screamed out into the street.

"Someone, help me!" she cried.

Her voice echoed into the night.

A dog barked in the distance.

Behind her the door was kicked open. The jamb splintering.

Beth turned and screamed again.

The killer ran at her, knife raised in the air. She jumped out of the way and jumped onto the bed. Before she could get off it, she felt the sharpness of the knife enter her back. She screamed in pain. Blood gushing from the wound. She fell to the floor.

The killer jumped over the bed and down beside her, he grabbed her by the hair and pulled her up, violently swinging her around like a ragdoll. He let her go and she went crashing into the full length mirror. It shattered, large shards of glass stabbing into her skin.

She continued to scream out in pain and began crawling along the floor. Despite of the pieces of glass sticking out of her stomach and legs and the gaping wound in her back.

"Help . . ." Beth said weakly, almost to herself. She couldn't believe what was happening to her. She was dying.

The killer then bent down and wrapped his arms around her waist, hoisting her up from the floor. He threw her onto the bed and stood over. She looked up into the eyes of the mask. Haunting eyes. Eyes of a killer.

He raised his knife and brought it down into her stomach, chest and face multiple times. Blood splattering all over the bed and walls.

'Something To Die For' ended and the killer left the house.

Beth Armstrong was dead. And she wouldn't be the last to die in the same month . . .


End file.
